Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Mon, 8 Nov 2004, Stephen Clement wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
>
> > I somehow ended up with three CD-ROM drives that won't read the CD-R that I 
> > managed to make of SW4.0 on the 8X burner after the 2X stopped burning 
> > disks that anything could read.  (It helped to ignore everyone's 
> > instructions and put the shiny side UP not down, as there is no label or 
> > writing on these cheap blanks.  Blue side with numbers goes down).
> >
> > One appears to have died since last used and won't read any disk in DOS or 
> > linux.  40X.  All the other drives 24X or faster read CD-Rs if they read 
> > CD-ROMS.  It acts a bit differently if there is no disk (it tells you that) 
> > or some disk (different message, has trouble reading it).
>
> It all depends when it comes to CD-R's with old drives. I have a CD drive 
> that is 12x and almost a decade old, and it reads disks burned by my Plextor 
> Premium (very expensive, although definitly worth it), when I burn using 
> Verbatim CD's. Any other burned CD doesn't work. Might want to try with 
> different burners, and different CD's if possible. My one CD drive wouldn't 
> read "Smart Buy" CD's, even though the CD drive was brand new, although it 
> read Verbatim disks burned by the same burner. With burning CD's and old CD 
> drives, it's totally hit or miss.

Thanks for this information.  We will test out our older CD-ROM drives 
(anything between 12X and 14X) to see if they read CD-Rs.  People keep 
giving them to us so it is cheaper to just replace the drive with one we 
have for free, than to buy CD-Rs which work in more drives (we were given 
50 free blanks by a friend who got a 100% rebate).

The 2X burner made three disks with Windows Roxio, and then one with 
cdrecord in linux, on the first package of blanks.  It then made 2 
unreadable CDs on blanks from this package and then on one from the newer 
package (which do work on the 8X drive).  So I think the burner part 
really did finish dying.  It acted like it was burning, and I see a color 
change, but I tried the results on that burner and on three others that 
read the CD-R from the 8X and none of them could read it.

When we found it at the curb it would only play a few seconds of 
audio CD and then stop.  It still reads CD-Rs from other burners.

It took 40 min to burn a CD with this drive so it is no great loss.

> > One probably came unplugged when my partner was plugging back in the floppy 
> > drive that came unplugged when we were putting back the 32MB SIMMs because 
> > the 64MB SIMMs only work in certain boards (this one found them as 16MB). 
> > It won't read anything at all in DOS or linux.  We know this is a good 
> > drive because we used it to replace one that only read CD-ROMs half the 
> > time.  (The joys of using equipment people put at the curb!).  I also knew 
> > the floppy cable had come unplugged because we had to replace the first 
> > floppy drive and I put in one that tested perfect with floppymeter.
>
> Heh, I had a situation like this just recently. Know exactly what you mean, 
> the curb stuff isn't exactly great.
>
> > The third one works in DOS but NOT in BL2 so I did a search on various of 
> > the error messages that I got during boot (there were lots of them) and 
> > found a few postings in kernel archives list with the exact same error 
> > messages and reference to a patch.  Using Kernel 2.5.43 fixed the problem 
> > for the poster, as did the patch.  They also installed a newer version of 
> > cdrecord (as recommended also by Christof).
>
> Maybe just try the new version of cdrecord?

That is not going to help if BL2 won't even boot without complaining to 
great length about no sense data when it encounters that drive.

ATAPI devicde hdd:
Unkown Error Type:  No sense data.......
No additional sense information.

Lots more error messages during boot or when I try to mount the drive.
A bit slow to spin up but otherwise works fine in DOS.  I think I might 
learn to use the DOS ports of cdrecord or cdroast on this machine.

> > Is 2.5.43 this a stable kernel?  Would it be better to hunt up a 2.6 kernel 
> > of some sort, presumably the smallest one I can find as I would use it only 
> > for this one CD burner.  Is there some really small 2.6 kernel that would 
> > have support for CD-ROM modules and scsi emulation so I can use it only 
> > once in a while to copy CDs?

> No, 2.5.43 is not a stable kernel. Odd 2.x version numbers are unstable, even 
> ones are stable (I'm talking the middle number, so 2.4.21 would be stable but 
> 2.3.2 would not be.) About small 2.6 kernels: the 2.6 kernel series can't fit 
> on 1 floppy. Period.

> > I would also need matching modules for this kernel (sr_mod, sg, ide-cd, 
> > ide-scsi, scsi_mod).  Does uClibc have a 2.6 kernel with modules?
>
> Don't think so.

I looked online under 'small 2.6 kernel' and got nowhere, so checked 
Slackware.  SW 10.0 came out Oct 23 2004 and uses 2.4.26 kernel but I has 
reference to the fact that you can try out the 2.6.9 kernel in 
/testing/packages/linux-2.6.9.  The generic i486 kernel is 1.5M and the 
generic i386 kernel is 1.4M.  The modules are all in one .tgz package 
which is 10.7MB.  They say these modules include support for CD-ROM drives 
and ethernet cards.  So I suppose I could try that.  I am not likely to 
try to compile my own kernel for quite a while but if some other BL user 
wants to compile 2.6 from source code, following Steven's model, that 
would be lovely.

> > The burner in question is 4x-4x-32x and came in a Compaq case with dead 
> > board, cpu around 700MHz, and working DVD-ROM drive.  It might postdate BL2 
> > (1999).  Finally a reason to use a newer kernel.
>
> Any idea what brand the burner is?

DOS reports a 4x4x32 CD-R/RW drive and a Compaq DVD-ROM drive.
These came in a dead very fast (for us) computer.  The label
says to replace it with a Compaq part number.  If linux worked I could get 
more info.  How does one determine the manufacturer in DOS without taking 
the drive out of the case?

The 2X drive was 1999 so this 4X has to be later than that and also later 
than SW71.  It took a few years for the kernel developers to catch up with 
it.


> > I think Steven said it was not possible to compile a 2.4 kernel as small as 
> > the 2.2.16 that he compiled for BL2 or BL2 so 2.6 will probably be even 
> > larger no matter how small people managed to compile it, or is there some 
> > really minimal precompiled 2.6 kernel to which you can add the CD-burning 
> > modules?

> 2.4 can be fit one disk (very carefully), but not with the stuff you're 
> looking at compiled in.

I just want to be able to add the modules to the kernel.
I think it will be easier in this case to learn DOS cdrecord.  Could not 
try it on the 2X because the DOS partition is too small and we need 700MB 
free to copy the original to before writing to CD.

Steven, how small did you manage to compile 2.4 when you were 
experimenting with it?


> > keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
> > SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org 
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stephen Clement
>
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org